Cannes 2025 - Nouvelle Vague by Richard Linklater

Nouvelle Vague is an affectionate, often very funny cinephile tribute to a moment in film history that is now revered. The director chooses a lighter, more generous approach however. It celebrates chaos, enthusiasm and invention, capturing the sense of youthful urgency that surrounded the making of Breathless and the small group of critics-turned-filmmakers who rebelled against the "cinema de papa".

The film never feels like a pastiche and maybe it took an American director to be able to make it in that way. The film focuses primarily on the making of Breathless, following Jean-Luc Godard as he moves from theory to practice with a mixture of arrogance, passion and endless energy. What emerges is less a biographical portrait than a snapshot of a creative environment, one fuelled by arguments, improvisation and a certain disregard for rules. 

Guillaume Marbeck is excellent as Godard, capturing both his sharp intelligence and his prickly self-importance. He avoids turning him into a caricature that the director himself somehow became in his older years. His Godard is funny, irritating, inspiring and occasionally obtuse, often within the same scene. Marbeck plays him as an impatient man, convinced that cinema must be torn apart to be rebuilt. Aubry Dullin brings a different energy as Jean-Paul Belmondo. His Belmondo is charming, relaxed and exuding an old-school masculinity. The contrast between him and Godard provides much of the film’s humour, as well as its sense of balance. Zoey Deutch is equally well cast as Jean Seberg, bringing warmth, wit and presence. The film gives her space to exist as more than a muse or symbol, which is one of its strengths. 

Narratively, Nouvelle Vague is deliberately loose. There is relatively little conflict beyond the familiar tension between artists and financiers, a recurring theme that plays out here in predictable but not unpleasant ways. Money worries, scheduling pressures and institutional scepticism hover in the background, but they never threaten to derail the project, meaning this lack of real jeopardy limits its dramatic weight. It could be said that the director views this era through rose-tinted glasses but perhaps this film is also in conversation with the way non-French cinephiles and artists view it.  The messier aspects: ego clashes, exclusions, power dynamics... are present but possible smoothed out. This is not a critique of the movement so much as a love letter to its energy.  For some viewers, that will be enough. Others may wish for a sharper edge, or at least a deeper interrogation of the myths being reinforced. 

Nouvelle Vague very much feels like the work of an American filmmaker in love with an idea of the Nouvelle Vague: its freedom, its youthfulness, its sense of possibility... There is nothing inherently wrong with that and in fact, the film’s generosity is part of its appeal. It does not pretend to be definitive, nor does it claim authority over history. It simply wants to spend time in this world and invite the audience along. 

Review by Laurent de Alberti.

Official Selection, in Competition

Star rating: ★★★☆☆

Nouvelle Vague. Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Guillaume Marbeck, Aubry Dullin, Zoey Deutch...